“There’s more of them!” Du Preez yelled.
Du Preez fired another searing stream of lightning. It hit the closest sexbot fullforce. The bot’s skin burnt off, dropping away to reveal its metal skeleton, and then it overloaded and blew up, showering the room in parts. Others kept coming in their jerky, puppetlike way.
Madaki grabbed the stripper pole, aiming to climb hand over hand to the button. His hands met some kind of oily substance, however. Unable to grip, he immediately slid back down. Trying again, Madaki couldn’t find purchase and scrabbled at the pole without getting off the ground.
“It’s covered in something slippery!” Madaki said, “Come here, climb onto my back and I will lift you!”
“Dance with your ass! Dance with your ass! Put your ass into the dance!”
Madaki got down low, tucking in his head like a turtle. One of the male sexbots climbed onto the stage. The pretty boys looked less used and were therefore more agile. Madaki unholstered his shotgun again and fired, the blast catching the sexbot in the chest. It wasn’t killed but was flung backwards off the stage. More reached across the platform. Madaki didn’t have enough time to reload his shotgun so he dropped it and unsheathed the machete from behind his shoulder. With one hard, controlled swipe Madaki removed both hands from a nearby sexbot as it grasped at him. The hands fell to the stage clunkily. The sexbot continued to jab at Madaki with its sparking stumps.
“Come on!” Madaki said.
Letting his Zeus lightning gun hang off its strap, Du Preez tried to climb onto Madaki’s shoulders. Just like Madaki, he tried to grip the pole but his hands slid straight off. Sexbots clamoured at the stage. Eventually, Du Preez got both feet firmly on Madaki’s shoulders. Madaki had to continue fending off the attack of the sexbots as he struggled to lift Du Preez.
“The dance gods demand an ass-crifice! Woooooo!”
Grunting with effort, Madaki lifted with his legs. Du Preez struggled with his footing and reached for the button. Teetoring awkwardly, Du Preez managed to flip the plastic cover off the red button and slap it against the ceiling.
Instantly, the blaring music died. The cleaning lights which had been lit when they first walked into the club slammed back on and filled the room with brightness. Just as suddenly, the sexbots stopped their assault on the stage. Arms dropping to their sides, the sexbots didn’t power off but seemed to fall into a waiting lull. Du Preez awkwardly climbed off Madaki’s shoulders, half-falling to the stage. Both men regarded the small army of sexbots with suspicion.
“Is that it? Now what?” Du Preez said.
“New users recognised, awaiting orders.” The nine remaining sexbots said in unison.
Bits of sexbots were scattered across the club. Only the ones destroyed by Du Preez’s lightning gun were unrecoverable, however. The bots that Madaki had shot and maimed, even the female with no head, were standing and waiting for instructions. Among them were the blonde sexbot, American flag hanging in shreds across her blasted chest, and the tall, one-armed Amazon that had originally attacked them.
“Where are the weapons?” Du Preez said.
“These are the weapons, soldiers to fight the others for us.” Madaki said, “They’ll take our commands now.”
“Awaiting orders.” The chorus of sexbots repeated.
“What? Any kind of order?” Du Preez said.
“I believe so, if you think we have time.” Madaki said.
“Think I’ll pass, so many metal bits and loose wires sticking out of this crew, who knows what condition they might be on the inside.” Du Preez said, “Let’s get the fok out of here.”
xXx
“It’s all coming together.” Zachariah said.
Slayerz’s head producer rubbed his hands together in glee. On the main screen, they had just watched Madaki and Du Preez battle and win themselves a small army of sexbots. On other screens, Digger and Homer were escaping the slow-moving gas of Shantytown, DFN Jefferson watched the street with her sniper rifle and her partner Bolt looked bored in the background. Yet another screen overlooked Suburbia from a long-range drone. All six contestants airdropped into that zone were gathered near the centre of the section but weren’t fighting. One by one they’d heard the ‘music’ described by Echo Three and peeled away to meet near the church, hardly aware of one another.
A holographic map of the arena now dominated the middle of the room. From where Zachariah was standing the five interlocking sections looked almost like a malformed version of the five Olympic rings. Created via satellite, the holographic arena was a real-time display of what was going on above ground, over a hundred metres above the control centre. Dots and tabs indicated where each of the contestants were. Glowing lines between rings indicated which tunnels were currently open between different sections and which were closed.
The five different sections of the arena, with five different threats, had been Zachariah’s idea and part of the reason he had been promoted after Roland Smith, the previous head producer, had been dismissed in disgrace. After the disastrous end of last season where a live Abomination had been brought in to terrorise the contestants and its mutant offspring had wound up escaping the arena, Slayerz had been forbidden from hosting any more games on New American soil or in any bordering nations. Hence the reason they had shifted operations entirely to Africa. Working quickly, however, show runners like Zachariah had given the season an African Bio-Wars theme. They found contestants who had fought or had their lives changed by the Bio-Wars, made an arena in the abandoned city scarred by the war, and created appropriate threats for each section. The leftover mechs around Freeway Interchange, and other bots, the irradiated Sarin in Shantytown, the mutant animals in Towers, the thing in the church in the Suburbia section which counted as a ‘Mental Danger’, and surprise waiting in City Center.
“Sir, what about the boy? Uh, Homo Superior Number Eleven?” One of the techs said, “Those-, abilities, we just saw him use.”
“Another Slayerz first! Real proof of experiments that have created actual telekinesis!” Zachariah said.
“But-, he used that power to stop the knife in midair without even touching one of those injectors.” The tech said, “I thought he wasn’t supposed to be able to do that?”
“An adrenaline spike, we knew that could potentially trigger his abilities as well.” Zachariah scowled.
“It’s just that there’s so much we don’t know about what he can do, what the upper limit might be on his power.” The tech said, “Do you think it’s totally wise to let such an unknown quality loose in the arena? We could end up with another Abomination situation, like last season.”
“I do think it’s wise, actually, so why don’t you leave the thinking to me and go back to staring at your little cubicle.” Zachariah said.
“Yes, sir, sorry.” The tech replied.
Chapter Eleven
“On this week’s Critical Condition, ten of the original sixteen patients have been voted out of The Hospital! Without medical insurance or healthcare, the remaining six will have to outbattle, outwit and outlast the competition in order to continue receiving treatment!”
Several very sickly people race across pillars high off the ground, suspended above a pond filled with medical waste. One of them stumbles, falls. The image freezes on them mid-plunge and turns to monochrome.
“Cracks are beginning to show in the cancer alliance!”
Two men and a woman wearing blue scrubs stand around a bin of burning medical waste. Bald, with faces wrapped too tight across skulls, their bones poke against the skin of their shoulders and arms.
“All I’m saying is, I’ve got stomach cancer, you can’t live without a stomach!” One of the men says to the other, “Micki here can’t live without lungs. But lymph nodes? I don’t know, I ain’t never seen a lymph node, maybe you can do without them?”
“And Jenny has received an immunity idol! It may not help with her rare autoimmune disease but will it save her from being voted out again this wee
k?”
Weeping, a woman in green scrubs pushes herself against the plastic wall of some kind of quarantine cell.
“I don’t expect to win! I just want to stay in the competition long enough to survive until my nephew is born!” She cries through the plastic.
“Only one can be the ultimate survivor, and avoid being voted out long enough to receive a full round of treatment! Hopes, and desperation, have never been higher than among the final six on Critical Condition!”
After his initial burst of formless rage, shock having sent Digger back to another time and place, Digger felt strangely gratified by what Homer had shown him. Not just because it saved his life but because he also felt it proved things he had long been saying. As he raved, they ran toward the general centre of Shantytown. Poisonous gas followed at their heels, picking up speed now.
“Crazy, like they called me nuts but I bloody well told them, didn’t I? Oh, no, no such thing as mutants with bloody mind powers.” Digger said, “Sure, we got mutants that can see in the dark as clear as daylight, or are immune to bullets, or can go on fighting for hours without their fucking heads. You got gas that can kill you deader than dead, patches of ground that’ll turn you inside out, but no mind powers. You got monsters born out of nuclear holocaust and built from pieces of dead bodies, that can tear through soldiers and armoured trucks like paper dolls, but no mind powers! No, they said, what I did, that was on me! What about now, huh? Look at this shit now!”
Gas crawled over shanties filled with long-dead skeletons and swallowed whole streets like a slow motion tsunami, casting its sickly green glow over everything. Homer followed Digger in spite of how close the unhinged Australian had just come to killing him. The boy’s eyebrows only knotted together in confusion, unafraid but seemingly unable to understand what had just happened. He pulled his oversized helmet back. It kept slipping down when he ran. The effort of catching the knife still seemed to be wearing on him, his face drawn and one foot lagging behind as if he had a twisted ankle. In spite of his incessant talking, Digger seemed untroubled. He kept ahead of Homer and the irradiated fog with easy, loping strides.
“There we go! That building will have to do.” Digger said.
Digger pointed to a single-level brick building with barred windows. It looked like an old police station although with no signage on the outside. Under the bars, the windows were intact. A heavy set of doors were sealed shut at the front of the building, surrounded by trash. It was probably the largest and most intact building in the whole Shantytown section. Toxic gas was closing in on Digger and Homer. It took Digger a few moments but he managed to wrest the doors open. The pair hurried inside as fingers of green gas made their way around the building, slamming the doors shut behind them.
Shafts of barred sunlight crossed the darkened room. Digger and Homer backed away from the doors and a dim green glow started to fill the windows. Fortunately, the doors were sealed shut. Dusty tables and chairs were scattered through the large entry.
Digger was looking for tripwires when he felt hair on his arms start to rise. A staticky pulse of electricity ran through the air. Strange neon shapes glowed out of a shadowy storage closet to Digger’s left. Homer was already retreating into the nearest corner. Digger didn’t have time to get his gun in place. Tattoos outlined with brightly coloured tubes buried under skin burned like overcharged neon signs. Tanai Den’atsu, one of the two bodymodders paired together, lunged at Digger with blue sparks flying from the tips of his fingers.
Given it had been twenty minutes or more since the last update, and they had been running from the gas, Digger hadn’t been paying much attention to the map. The other team had reached the building before them. Tanai’s tattoos looked like monstrous eels that scrolled down and around his arms. The tattoos, whether by fault or design Digger wasn’t sure, allowed Tanai to channel electricity through his skin. Digger swung his submachine gun into Tanai’s midsection before the man could grab and stun him. Arcs of electricity flew from his hands as he stumbled backward. Digger started to take aim but bullets smacked into the wall beside him, shots coming from across the room. Instinctually, Digger whipped around and fired a short burst. The spidery shape of Kali Badami, Tanai’s partner, had appeared from behind an overturned desk. Weapons bristled in her six hands. Her mechanical limbs made soft whirring sounds as she skittered backward.
Tanai recovered and threw himself at Digger, swinging a strange baton. The baton channelled Tanai’s own electric shock ability through its length. As he plunged it into Digger’s side it released a blast of blue energy and hurled the Australian back into the doors he’d thrown closed. Paralysing pain traveled the length of Digger’s body. Homer, meanwhile, was of no help as he buried himself in the corner and covered his head. Digger managed to recover enough to lift his SMG and fire another burst at Tanai. Bullets stitched into his body armour, not penetrating into his flesh but knocking the wind out of the man. Kali reappeared across the room. Digger turned and fired at her as she snapped her metal arms up to shield her face. She rushed him, firing back.
Kali Badami was compact but hard-muscled, she would have to be strong to accommodate the permanent weight of her cybernetic body mods. Fused to her sides were her two primary metal limbs. They were longer and more spidery than her flesh-and-blood arms, with a metallic finish and five-fingered hands. Another pair of child-sized limbs, with only three fingers apiece, emerged from the underside of Kali’s chest. Her exotic armour was built around the extra arms. Instead of dual-wielding Kali was tri-wielding, small pistols jutting from three of her hands. She had two short swords wrapped in two of her other hands.
“Stop! Stop fighting!” Kali said.
Digger squeezed off another several shots but Kali shielded her face with one arm and kept coming. One of his bullets cut across the outside of Kali’s right, flesh-and-blood arm, but the others bounced off her metal arm and armour. As Digger was distracted, Tanai hit him with another blast from his staff. Kali dropped one of her guns and the long, metal arm that had been holding it shot out and snatched Digger’s UMP45 instead. Thrown against the wall by the shock he’d just received, Digger lost his grip on the submachine gun. Kali tossed it across the room.
Kali seemed to loom over Digger on the ground. He lashed out with one foot and kicked the sword out of Kali’s left hand. In the same motion he yanked his knife from out of the sheath attached upside down to his chest. Getting back to his feet, Digger threw his body weight into Kali and knocked her backward before spinning onto Tanai.
Digger jammed his knife against Tanai’s throat, drawing a bead of blood. Kali slammed one mechanical hand into Digger’s chest, shoving him back, but he kept his grip on the Japanese man. Digger saw Kali’s third gun clasped in one of her child-sized, mechanical hands. With his free hand he grabbed it and pushed it upward so it was pointed at Kali’s face. One of her swords swept around to lay against Digger’s neck. It was a three-way standoff. Kali couldn’t cut Digger without him slashing Tanai’s throat and yanking the trigger of the gun pointed at her, but Digger couldn’t kill Tanai without Kali cutting his head from his shoulders. Digger looked around and spotted Homer, in the corner.
“Little help?” Digger asked.
“Stop! Just stop fighting!” Kali said.
The two arms attached to Kali’s chest were whirring and fighting the strain of Digger’s big hand pushing her remaining gun up toward her chin. The longer arms fused to her sides were apelike in their strength. The smaller, three-fingered ones were built for more delicate work.
“No shit no fighting, you drop it or I’ll cut his throat.” Digger said.
Tanai’s tattoos glowed, his hands crackling with electricity. Digger pressed the blade into his neck harder. Kali glanced down, distracted, and Digger kicked at one of her legs. Letting out a cry of pain and surprise, Kali dropped and one of her longer metal arms went to stop her fall. Digger wrestled her gun loose and turned it around. Kali founded the muzzle of her own pistol pressed against
her head. Her sword was still at Digger’s throat, however, unwavering in her mechanical grip, staying in the same spot even as the rest of her body dropped.
“Drop it.” Digger said.
“Just think about this for a second!” Kali said, “You kill me, I kill you, someone goes boom, right? I mean that either way. Outside the air is filled with that poison shit. Even if one of us kills the other, and manages to avoid the explosion, it’ll blow open the wall or the windows and we’ll all die no matter what. As long as we’re stuck in here together we can’t kill each other, standoff or not, got it?”
Digger seemed to consider their options for a few moments. He glanced from the bracelets wrapped around their forearms to the windows of the building, filled with green gas. Pulling the knife away from Tanai’s throat, he cocked Kali’s gun back and moved it away from her forehead.
“Alright, yeah, fair point.” Digger said.
The two teams backed away from one another, not sure of what to do next. Tanai, Digger realised, did not speak English but was following the conversation mostly through tone. He stood back stiffly and clenched his fists. Tiny sparks of blue light shot from between the man’s fingers, tattoos glowing. Looking back at Homer, Digger remembered he couldn’t be sure of how much the boy understood either.
“We should stay here, in the one room, and wait it out.” Kali said, “Can I have my gun back?”
“You’ve got two more guns.” Digger said.
“Yeah, but they’re really crappy guns.” Kali said, “Bad sights, or I guess you’d be dead already.”
Digger ignored her, tucking Kali’s small handgun into a loop of his belt. He picked up his UMP45 as well and checked it. Moving across the room, Digger pulled a chair from under a dusty desk and sat down heavily. Homer followed him, no longer wary of the other team.
“So how come you two aren’t out there, getting turned inside out by the gas?” Digger said.
Kill Switch: Final Season Page 12